Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Does God Owe You?

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Does God Owe You? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: So you do something nice for someone. You invite a
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  Speaker 1: struggling neighbor over for dinner, You take a friend out
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  Speaker 1: for coffee who you know is suffering. You give a
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  Speaker 1: family at church some money to get through a rough season.
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  Speaker 1: You help someone, and in the back of your mind
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  Speaker 1: you wonder, am I doing this because I'm a good person?
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  Speaker 1: Or am I doing this because I want God to
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  Speaker 1: reward me for it later? And if I'm doing it
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  Speaker 1: for a future reward, then in the moment it can
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  Speaker 1: all feel very transactional, right, like we're engaged in an
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  Speaker 1: under the table deal with God that the person we
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  Speaker 1: serve doesn't know about. Today, I asked, Pastor John, does
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  Speaker 1: God owe you? This important question comes from an anonymous listener
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  Speaker 1: to the podcast who writes this, Pastor John, thank you
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  Speaker 1: for your ministry and for this podcast avenue to ask questions.
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  Speaker 1: I have one for you. You have famously built your
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  Speaker 1: theology on the idea that Jesus entices us with rewards
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  Speaker 1: to sustain our love, specifically in Luke fourteen fourteen, which
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  Speaker 1: we read tomorrow, where Jesus promises that we will be
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  Speaker 1: repaid in the Kingdom for inviting the poor to our
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  Speaker 1: banquets in this life. This very incentive motivates the kindness.
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  Speaker 1: Yet you also fiercely oppose what you call the debtor's ethic,
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  Speaker 1: using Romans for four to argue that any wage reckoned
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  Speaker 1: as his do nullifies grace. So here's the challenge. I see.
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  Speaker 1: If I feed the poor because I'm pursuing a future
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  Speaker 1: payout from God, have I not operationalized this into a
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  Speaker 1: business transaction of grace? If the promise of repayment is
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  Speaker 1: the sustaining power of the act, doesn't the poor man
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  Speaker 1: become a mere tool to my reward rather than an
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  Speaker 1: object of my love? How can seeking a divine repayment
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  Speaker 1: be anything other than working for a wage?
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  Speaker 2: This is a really important question. Just a few days ago,
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  Speaker 2: I was discussing this very question with due to Tomfu,
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  Speaker 2: a friend from Cameroon, as we sat in Olive Garden,
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  Speaker 2: sipping our soup and eating bread sticks, which is one
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  Speaker 2: of the reasons I go to olive garden, the bread
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  Speaker 2: and the way we were posing the question was, well,
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  Speaker 2: if it is wrong to speak of earning rewards from God,
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  Speaker 2: and I think it is wrong to use the word
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  Speaker 2: earn in relation to God, how do you describe the
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  Speaker 2: correlation between our obedience and the rewards we receive for it,
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  Speaker 2: if not earning. It's the same question that our friend
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  Speaker 2: is asking when he says or she, I'm not sure
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  Speaker 2: who's asking the question. How can seeking a divine repayment
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  Speaker 2: be anything other than working for a wage? That's the
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  Speaker 2: key question. Now here's the problem. Jesus says in Luke
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  Speaker 2: fourteen fourteen. When you get a feast, invite the poor,
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  Speaker 2: the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be
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  Speaker 2: blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be
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  Speaker 2: repaid at the resurrection of the Just. And the word
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  Speaker 2: repaid there is a word that certainly can be used
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  Speaker 2: for earning wages. It can be so it looks like
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  Speaker 2: our obedience to Jesus to bless the poor with our
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  Speaker 2: feasts is a way of earning his payback earning a wage.
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  Speaker 2: But catch the very same word for payback on topod
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  Speaker 2: althestai is used in Romans thirteen. I mean, now Romans eleven,
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  Speaker 2: verse thirty five, like this, who has given a gift
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  Speaker 2: to God that he might be repaid? Exact same word
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  Speaker 2: and form of the word, and the applied answer of
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  Speaker 2: course is nobody. Nobody has given a gift to God
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  Speaker 2: that he might be repaid for. From him and through him,
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  Speaker 2: and to him are all things. To him be glory
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  Speaker 2: forever and ever amen. In other words, it is a
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  Speaker 2: fundamental biblical truth that the only thing we can give
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  Speaker 2: to God is what he already owns. Here's the way,
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  Speaker 2: David prays in First Chronicles twenty nine fourteen, Who am
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  Speaker 2: I and what is my people? That we should be
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  Speaker 2: able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you,
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  Speaker 2: oh God? And of your own have we given you.
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  Speaker 2: So here's the way God himself puts it. And this
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  Speaker 2: is what Paul is quoting in Romans eleven. God himself,
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  Speaker 2: in Job forty one eleven says, who has first given
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  Speaker 2: to me? That I should repay him? Nobody? Whatever is
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  Speaker 2: under the whole heaven is mine. So Paul says the
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  Speaker 2: same thing again in X seventeen twenty five. God is
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  Speaker 2: not served by human hands as though he needed anything,
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  Speaker 2: since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath
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  Speaker 2: and everything. In other words, we can't give God anything
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  Speaker 2: that is not already his, and so you can't put
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  Speaker 2: him in your debt by supplying some need. But that's
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  Speaker 2: what wages are. Wages are They are paying a worker
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  Speaker 2: what you owe him because he supplied you with a
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  Speaker 2: service that you needed, and now you are in his
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  Speaker 2: debt to pay him. That's just demands. We can never
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  Speaker 2: do that to God, who has given a gift to
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  Speaker 2: him that he might be repaid. Paul says, nobody, what
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  Speaker 2: do you have that you did not receive? He asks,
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  Speaker 2: if you then received it, why do you boast as
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  Speaker 2: though it were not a gift one Grintians four to seven.
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  Speaker 2: But someone might say, well, yes, you can't give to
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  Speaker 2: God anything that is not already his. But the giving itself,
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  Speaker 2: the act of giving, might be the service that he
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  Speaker 2: pays back with a wage. Maybe that's it, But that
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  Speaker 2: doesn't work, because even the act of our serving or
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  Speaker 2: giving is a gift of God's grace. This is really
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  Speaker 2: clear in One Corinthians fifteen ten. By the grace of God,
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  Speaker 2: I am what I am, and his grace toward me
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  Speaker 2: was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder
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  Speaker 2: than any of them. And then he adds this, though
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  Speaker 2: it was not I, but the grace of God that
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  Speaker 2: was with me. So Paul is saying that after we
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  Speaker 2: are justified by grace alone, through faith alone. Even our obedience,
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  Speaker 2: our act, our giving or serving, is a gift of
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  Speaker 2: God's grace, a working of God's grace. It was not
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  Speaker 2: I but the grace of God that was with me.
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  Speaker 2: That's what was decisive in enabling me to do what
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  Speaker 2: I ought to do. This is what he says again
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  Speaker 2: in Philippians two thirteen. Work out your salvation with fear
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  Speaker 2: and trembling, for it's God who's at work in you
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  Speaker 2: both to will, that's the key, will, and to work
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  Speaker 2: for his good pleasure. So our working is first the
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  Speaker 2: working of God. He works through our working. We work
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  Speaker 2: by his working. This is what Hebrews thirteen twenty one says. Now,
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  Speaker 2: may the God of Peace equip you with everything good
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  Speaker 2: that you may do His will working in us that
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  Speaker 2: which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to
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  Speaker 2: whom be glory. Of course, to whom be glory. He
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  Speaker 2: gets the glory because He worked it in us. Forever
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  Speaker 2: and ever I'm in, And all this was prophesied in
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  Speaker 2: Ezekiel thirty six twenty seven. It's part of the New
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  Speaker 2: Covenant framework in which we live. That our obedience was
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  Speaker 2: bought with the blood of Jesus. I will put my
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  Speaker 2: spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk
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  Speaker 2: in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
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  Speaker 2: So the point of all those texts is that even
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  Speaker 2: the giving of our service to God is a gift
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  Speaker 2: from God. God causes us to walk in paths of
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  Speaker 2: obedience for his namesake. He works it in us. Our
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  Speaker 2: willing is owing to his willing. Our working is owing
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  Speaker 2: to his grace. So we cannot put God in our debt.
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  Speaker 2: We can't give to him what he doesn't have, and
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  Speaker 2: we can't offer him service that he does not provide. First,
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  Speaker 2: like one Peter four eleven says, we serve in the
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  Speaker 2: strength that God himself supplies. So we can't earn anything
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  Speaker 2: from God, because earn means that we supply a labor
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  Speaker 2: or a servant or a product that puts someone in
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  Speaker 2: our debts so that they owe us. But we can
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  Speaker 2: never put God in our debt. He never owes us anything,
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  Speaker 2: so all his gifts and all his rewards are undeserved grace.
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  Speaker 2: So then the question is, okay, what then is the correlation.
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  Speaker 2: That's what we were discussing at the Olive Garden say,
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  Speaker 2: what the what is the correlation between our obedience to
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  Speaker 2: Christ and our rewards from Christ. God clearly rewards obedience inescapable,
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  Speaker 2: He rewards, and he rewards proportionately. They can even sometimes
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  Speaker 2: be called wages they can and repayment, because that's what
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  Speaker 2: they look like at the human level, but in reality,
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  Speaker 2: that's not what they are. They're not wages the way
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  Speaker 2: humans earn wages. Rather, they are there's my answer, now,
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  Speaker 2: God's way of declaring the beauty of the obedience of faith.
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  Speaker 2: Rewards are God's way of declaring the beauty of the
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  Speaker 2: obedience of faith. God loves to be trusted for his
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  Speaker 2: grace and power. It honors him, and when we trust
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  Speaker 2: him and do what he says, he doesn't get richer.
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  Speaker 2: His riches are put on display. This is the beautiful thing,
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  Speaker 2: This is the beauty of obedience, the obedience of faith.
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  Speaker 2: God shows his delight in this beauty the trusting him
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  Speaker 2: in obedience. He shows his delight in this beauty by
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  Speaker 2: rewarding it. So the answer to the question is, when
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  Speaker 2: we are seeking a reward, we are not seeking a
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  Speaker 2: wage or a payback. We are seeking the expressions of
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  Speaker 2: God's delight in his own grace in our lives.
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  Speaker 1: That's a deep conversation over free breadsticks.
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  Speaker 2: They were free.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, God is not indebted to us. God isn't an
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  Speaker 1: employer when we are seeking a reward. We are not
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  Speaker 1: seeking a wage or payback, but the expressions of God's
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  Speaker 1: delight in his own grace in our lives. You're not
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  Speaker 1: earning your keep with God, You're just experiencing his delight
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  Speaker 1: in the work he's already doing inside of you. Such
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  Speaker 1: a great reminder, Pastor John, thank you. And all of
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  Speaker 1: this kind of reminds me of all the time that
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  Speaker 1: we've spent looking at how we avoid loving the gifts
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  Speaker 1: more than the giver of the gifts and again focusing
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  Speaker 1: on God's goodness and all the things that we get
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  Speaker 1: him in the good things that we get. If that's
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  Speaker 1: something you wrestle with, focusing on God, the giver of
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  Speaker 1: all good gifts, and not getting taken by the gifts
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  Speaker 1: that He gives us, that is such a common challenge
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  Speaker 1: in the Christian life. And for more on that see
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  Speaker 1: pages ninety six to ninety seven and then Aspastro dram book.
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  Speaker 1: And I was just reflecting on that the other day,
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  Speaker 1: on the story of the ten Lepers, amazing and speaking
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  Speaker 1: of God delighting to give an abundance of grace. There's
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  Speaker 1: a story in the Gospels that is so wild it's
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  Speaker 1: hard to imagine. Really. I'm talking about the time when
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  Speaker 1: a whole group of people was resurrected from the dead
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  Speaker 1: together when Christ was crucified. Do you remember that story.
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  Speaker 1: The account is so brief, but we are going to
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  Speaker 1: look at it next time. Why a crowd got resurrected.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Raygi will see you back here on Thursday.